Getting divorced is tough for all sorts of reasons ‒ emotional, financial and even practical.

Katrene Halteh, the 127th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, has experienced divorce from two different angles. 

Katrene is the founder of Urban Family Lawyers, which she started last year. She’s also a mother-of-two with a failed marriage, which helps her empathise with her clients.

Officially, Katrene’s job is to handle separations, custody disputes and division of assets. Unofficially, a large part of her job is to be a counsellor to people whose emotions may be all over the place.

Katrene enjoys the challenge of appearing in court, but she often advises her clients to settle. Some divorces can spend years winding their way through the system, which is expensive and exhausting.

Katrene was attracted to family law because she’s a people person ‒ warm, easygoing and a great conversationalist. She likes being able to support people at difficult moments; and, in some instances, change their lives. At the start of her career, she worked on a lot of property cases, but she found them dry, because they didn’t have the same human element.